


Astral Visitors

by CarmineHat



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Death, Deceased Characters, Gen, The Astral Plane, crystal kingdom spoilers, is that enough death tags?, story and song spoilers, strange time, there are dead characters in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 11:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13457313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarmineHat/pseuds/CarmineHat
Summary: Noelle Redcheek is dead. Julia Burnsides is dead.They have a brief conversation over tea.





	Astral Visitors

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from. I just wondered what happened to Noelle before she was resurrected by Lucas and placed in her robot body.

Noelle Redcheek was dead.

It took her a while to figure it out. She had died so quickly, in that blaze. She doesn’t remember it hurting. Did it hurt? Did she forget?

She can’t tell.

There’s water under her feet, but she isn’t drowning. She’s standing on water. She’s been standing on water for seconds. Years. She’s been standing for as long as she can remember. It’s clear as anything she’s seen before, but she can’t see a bottom. She can’t tell if it goes one foot down or thousands.

The ocean reaches out on all sides. She sees nothing but this. It shimmers, brightly. Her eyes burn at the light.

“Hello there!” A voice calls out to her. Noelle looks up, and sees an island. Small. Wooded. A cottage quaint and warm in the center. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting visitors today.” A woman smiles. She’s beautiful, dark oak skin and brown hair. Noelle wonders who she is. “Why don’t you come in for tea?”

Tea sounds nice.

Can the dead drink?

Her feet are walking, though she didn’t tell them to. She can’t tell if she remembers how to walk. It seems unimportant. Her legs are carrying her just fine.

She is inside the cabin. A fire burns, but the house is wood. They’re all wood, and fire is dangerous.

“Your memory will come back, soon.” The woman sounds kind. Her voice is kind. She’s standing by a stove, and a tea kettle is barely visible behind her.

“Oh.” Does she want her memory back back?

“The tea will help. It’ll be done in just a moment.”

“Thank you,” she says, but she doesn’t know why. It seemed right. Natural. Is she polite? She doesn’t remember.

The cottage is friendly. Soft. Wood. Seams blend together. She sits at a table lighter than most of the other wood, matched by chairs. They have cushions on them, of the lightest summer green. The house hasn’t been lived in. The house is waiting.

Tea is set before her. Has she drunk tea before?

It smells like cinnamon. Home. It smells like home.

She drinks the tea.

Time passes. Julia whittles a duck.

“Where am I?”

Julia sets down the knife, and smiles. “This is my home. I built it. Sometimes lost souls stop by. For a bigger answer, you’re in the astral plane. You died, sweetheart.”

“Oh.” Noelle pauses. “Thank you for the tea. I think it’s helping.”

“You’re very welcome. Having something warm to drink makes everything more real, I’ve learned.”

“Why am I here?” Shouldn’t she be with spirits she knows? Is this her afterlife, a cottage with a stranger? It seems a strange afterlife.

The woman is sitting. The woman is drinking her tea. “Lost souls wander by, sometimes. A reaper will be here soon, to take you somewhere safe.”

“Oh.” Is she hiding? This cabin feels like hiding. “I think I died a very bad death.”

“I’m sorry.” The woman sips her tea. “If it helps, the questions are a sign of your mind returning.”

“I wanted to run. Maybe it would have helped. I don’t think so. The fire was so very hot.” She is staring at the tea. It ripples, like waves, circles rising from the center. “I was hiding. Maybe if I had talked to the man with the fire he wouldn’t have killed us.” Tears run down her face, she notes. “I was so afraid.”

There are dogs at her feet. They are wet. They are warm. They are very cute.

“It’s okay to be afraid. Everyone is afraid, sometimes. I was afraid when I died.”

The woman is dead. She should have known that. Her mind is honey. She drinks more tea.

“My name is Julia. Julia Burnsides.”

“Noelle Redcheek.”

There is a painting she hadn’t seen before. It hangs above the door. Julia and a man stand there, arms around waists. Together.

Her gaze is noticed. “Oh, yes, the painting. Someone made it for me. So I wouldn’t forget.” Julia smiles, serene and tragic. “My love. I’m waiting for him. It’s been a few days since I saw him last.” A frown crosses her face for a moment. “Years. It’s been a few years.” The frown disappears. “He’ll come home when he’s ready.”

That face. She’s seen it before. “I… I know him.”

Julia turns, then, away from the fireplace so carefully made in this house of wood. She stares, unmoving, unblinking, until one word forces itself from her lips- quietly, trembling, as if she fears to speak it. _“Magnus?”_

“I saw him!” Memory rushes by her, intense and fast. “I saw him, right before I died, with, with the pretty elf and the older dwarf and the man in blue jeans, before I had time to really hide. He was there!”

Noelle looks up as two hands, far stronger than they appeared, grip her arms. She never even saw Julia move. “Is Magnus alright!” she demands, her face drawing in close. Noelle can feel the older woman’s breath on her face. “Is he alright?” Julia’s voice cracks at the end, tears threatening to break through.

“I-I-I- I don’t know!”

There’s a voice calling her. It wants her to come back home.

This cabin isn’t real.

Is anything real?

“Tell me!” Julia yells, desperation filling her voice. “Please, please, just tell me if Magnus is alright.”

_It’s working! Come look- it’s really working! The spirit is starting to enter the device- can you hear me? Are you in there, can you hear me?_

“I don’t know,” Noelle whispers. She doesn’t know which person she’s answering. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

_There’s no need to be sorry, ah, I’ll give you a name later. Response to vocal stimuli, comprehension of language and emotional reaction! Excellent, excellent- someone mark all that down._

“Please,” Julia begs. She can feel the girl beneath her hands starting to fade. They have moments longer. “Tell me what you know.”

Noelle opens her mouth to answer, but the chair is empty, and Julia is the only humanoid spirit in the cabin once again. She stares at the chair. Handmade. Like everything in this house. Handmade.

She is waiting for someone.

If she closes her eyes, she can only just remember his face. They were happy. They were together. They were going to start a family. They were happy.

Wasn’t she happy, once?

The dogs brush around her legs. Yes, she knows them. They used to do that when they kissed. What a family they would have made. _Why did he leave?_ She wonders. It is hard to remember that he wasn’t the one who left, not really. Not permanently.

She did.

Julia sits on the floor, dogs by her side, and sobs.


End file.
